When creating your marketing materials, which one do you focus on: the value that your audience will get or how many of them will convert and buy your products?

Here’s a friendly reminder: Marketing is about focusing on the needs of the buyer. Many online marketers know this, yet many of them don’t practice the simple concept of putting their audience first. Instead, they become focused on selling, which is centered on their needs to convert and make money from their products.

So, how do you practice this you over me concept? How do you put the interests of your audience over your own in online marketing? Let’s dive into that question.

Be The Right Kind Of Marketer

If you wanna be an entrepreneur who serves people first, then putting your audience’s interests first is the central shift you have to make. To me, being a serve-first entrepreneur is about being the right kind of marketer.

What does that even mean?

People have this misconception that marketing is advertising and selling and that it’s all about conversion.

I want you to understand that marketing is more than that. It’s about understanding the needs of your people and creating a solution to serve them.

Serve-first marketing is taking that long-term view and not resorting to shortcuts and tactics that don’t last.

It’s about understanding the need to cultivate relationships with your team, audience, buyers, peers, and everybody else.

Marketing in its true sense is about taking care of how you affect the world at large.

In many ways, the serve-first way is the only form of marketing. Anything else is just selling.

Stop Asking How You’re Gonna Make Money

Instead of thinking about how you can make money from your products, ask yourself, “How do I serve my people better? How do I impact more people?”

Unfortunately, in the online marketing space, the default has become “charge more.” Online marketers are fixated on how they can make the same amount of money without having to serve as many people… screw that!

Why don’t you ask, “How can I charge less so I can serve more people?” That’s what a serve-first entrepreneur would do.

I’m NOT saying you’re gonna make less money, but your goal is to serve people and have a bigger impact on this world. Don’t follow the advice that most people are preaching, that you must think about how you can make more money with less of your time and help as few people as possible. That’s clearly not the serve-first way.

Steer Clear Of The Launch Model

Stop asking yourself, “When do I want people to buy? When will I launch?” Stop thinking about it from your perspective and  try launching a product AFTER your followers get to know you.

Instead of saying, “When will my people need my product?” Think about when they will be ready for what you offer.

That could be any time of the year, so why not make your product available all the time? 

I believe that’s part of the reason we should be evergreen instead of using the launch model. The launch model is not about them but us.

More importantly, it’s about taking them on a journey, and when the right time for them comes, they’ll buy.

Forget About Immediate ROI

So many of us have been trained to want immediate return on investment (ROI) and want people to pay us right away. We’ve been taught to be cash flow positive from the beginning.

That’s why most entrepreneurs do funnels, tripwires, and self-liquidating offers. And they do all those things without asking the question, “Are they ready?”

They don’t consider if it’s the right time for their people or whether they actually need the product. They use a one-time offer that forces people to spend money now.

Again, that’s another kind of shift you need to make in how you think about things. Serving is not about converting and getting money in your pocket. It’s about figuring out how you can best serve people without taking money that they might need to spend on something else right now.

Create Content That’s Valuable To People

Instead of asking the question, “How do I get more followers?” you ought to be asking, “How can I create content that will be valuable to my people?”

Let me just make it clear, I’m NOT referring to creating content as a TACTIC to get more followers. It doesn’t always lead to more followers, at least in the short term.

In the long term, though, creating content that’s valuable to people, that’s helpful to them, and that they actually need, will give you a bigger following.

It isn’t about using some tricks and riding the latest trend on social media. It’s about finding your message and putting out content that serves your audience by making their lives better than when you found them.

Think About Creating An Offer That’s Accessible

When pricing a product, most people would think about how they can make the most money, not about serving more. Now I don’t mean for you to think of pricing in a way that means you make zero money because then you can’t be in business.

Instead, focus on how you can create something economical and accessible. Think about “How can I serve people who can’t afford my product yet?” Again, focus on how you can best serve their needs.

Taking this approach is the way to have long-term success in doing the business that you love. Ultimately, the way to make the most money for yourself over time is to focus not on making money but on serving your people.

It’s a leap of faith. It’s practicing radical giving, which means you give without expecting a return. When you stop giving to get and you start giving for the love and joy of doing so, guess what? You will reap the rewards a hundredfold.

Align Your Interest With Your Audience

Having your interests 100% aligned with those of your audience is powerful.

The problem with the selling approach is that your interests aren’t fully aligned with your audience. You’re just trying to reach your goals and maximize your take.

For example, when pricing your product, the traditional approach makes you think about what percentage of the excess value you’ll get versus what your customers get to keep. When you think of it that way, it feels transactional. 

If you’re not aligned, you and your audience are at cross purposes. You may want them to get value, but you wanna keep most of that value.

On the other hand, when you’re 100% aligned, everything you do is in alignment with your people. You AND your people will feel it, and that leads to amazing results.

That’s when you create brand evangelists. That’s when the lifetime customer value goes up for each of your customers. You don’t have to ask or pay them to promote your offerings. They just promote your stuff because, damn, they’re aligned with you and they want other people who need your services to come your way.

Create Multiple Offers

In the online space, so many people say you should only offer one product. Just have one product and focus all your efforts on it.

While I don’t want you to create 50 products all at once when you’re starting, I wanna be clear that having only one product isn’t a serve-first way.

A situation where you can only serve people in one way doesn’t work. It’s not a good approach. It’s not good for you and them. Why? Because if they can only buy one thing from you, then the people who you could serve the living crap out of can’t buy again. That won’t increase your customer lifetime value.

Whereas, if you have multiple things they can buy over time, they’re gonna buy more. That’s good for you, and it’s also good for them.

Obviously, there are limits to this, right? I mean, you can’t have a million products. I can’t possibly have a legal template for everything. But I know that by offering different products at different levels, I can serve people longer, and that’s important.

That’s part of the reason I created BADA$$ Online Marketing University, which is my free training program. I have my group coaching program, and I’m planning to roll out one-on-one coaching at some point, but my free training provides top-notch training to people who can’t afford to buy multiple $997 and $1997 courses.

This is my answer to the question, “how I can help people who are at different points in their journey to solve their problems?” And this only works because I serve people well, and I put their interests over mine. It creates more work on the backend, but I think it’s worth it, and it allows me to get value over the long term.

Wrapping Up

Being a serve-first entrepreneur is about putting you (the customer) over me (the marketer). It requires time and involves creating brand evangelists. It’s about increasing lifetime customer value and creating goodwill. It isn’t about taking the easy button approach and not giving a crap about your people.

You can learn more about how I apply these serve-first methods by joining my FREE signature program, the BADA$$ Online Marketing University.

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